deplorable

Etymology

PIE word *de The adjective is borrowed from French déplorable (“lamentable, regrettable”), or from its etymon Late Latin dēplōrābilis + English -able (suffix meaning ‘relevant to, suitable to’). Dēplōrābilis is derived from Latin dēplōrō (“to bemoan, complain about; to bewail, lament, deplore”) + -ābilis (suffix meaning ‘able or worthy to be’); while dēplōrō is from dē- (intensifying prefix) + plōrō (“to cry out; to complain; to lament, deplore”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₃(w)- (“to flow; to swim”)). The noun is derived from the adjective. Sense 2 refers to a campaign speech by the American politician and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (born 1947) during the 2016 United States presidential election calling half of the supporters of her Republican opponent Donald Trump (born 1946) a “basket of deplorables”.

adj

1. To be deplored.
   1. To be felt sorrow for; worthy of compassion; lamentable.
      We were all saddened by the deplorable death of his son.
      If, however, the early symptoms of insanity be neglected till the brain becomes accustomed to the irregular actions of disease, or till organic changes take place from the early violence of those actions, then the case becomes hopeless of cure. In this situation, in too many cases, the victim of this deplorable malady is cast off by his friends, thrust into a dungeon or in chains, there to remain till the shattered intellect shall exhaust all its remaining energies in perpetual raving and violence, till it sinks into hopeless and deplorable idiocy. 1837, [Samuel B.?] Woodward, quotee, “Asylum for Poor Lunatics at Worcester, Massachusetts”, in Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society, Boston, May, 1837, Boston, Mass.: [Prison Discipline Society]; stereotyped at the Boston Type and Stereotype Foundery, →OCLC, page 19
   2. Deserving strong condemnation; shockingly bad, wretched.
      Poor children suffer permanent damage due to deplorable living conditions and deplorable treatment by law enforcement.
      Poor children are often accused of having deplorable manners, when they are, in fact, simply responding to society in ways that mirror how society treats them.

noun

1. A person or thing that is to be deplored.
   [H]eralding, this season, an end of the most awful of all apparel abominations, that most despicable of all deplorables, the ankle sock. 1970, Harold Hayes, editor, Esquire, volume 74, Chicago, Ill.: Esquire, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 183, column 1
2. (specifically, US politics, derogatory, neologism) A supporter of Donald Trump.
   He Donald Trump] did not say who “the guys” were—but [John Maguire] Dowd knew he meant the Trump base, the crowds at his rallies, the Fox News watchers, the deplorables. 2018, Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, page 355
   Trump's fate, [Steve] Bannon declared, rested with the deplorables, who had to be brought to the kind of fearful emotional pitch that would get them to the polls. 4 June 2019, Michael Wolff, “McCain, Woodward, Anonymous”, in Siege: Trump Under Fire, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company
   The self-image of the deplorables is that of the honest, hardworkin' people of the Christian American heartland and South who have been screwed by Washington, D.C., and the coastal elites since the dawn of time. 2020, Rick Wilson, Running against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump—And Democrats from Themselves, New York, N.Y.: Crown Forum, Crown Publishing Group, page 265